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Le Nozze di Figaro

Figaro’s path to marital bliss is paved with cobblestones and punctured with potholes. His employer, Count Almaviva, has promised to give his fiancée, Susanna, a hefty dowry if she will sleep with him on her wedding night. Bound by his position as a servant, Figaro has to conjure up a series of clever, sidesplitting schemes to thwart the Count’s plan without directly confronting the hand that feeds him. Meanwhile, Susanna helps the Countess to fool the Count, preserving Susanna’s honor and restoring the errant husband to his neglected wife. Seething beneath the comic timing of DaPonte’s libretto and the ebullience of Mozart’s score is the conflict between servant and master. Written during the Enlightenment, when the world order according to noble birthright was toppling, Figaro is as much as a testimony of social issues of the 18th century as it is reflective of today’s struggles to reconcile social inequality. Witty, funny, and full of social commentary, The Marriage of Figaro is a timeless look at the ways we treat one another. Spiced with some cross-dressing and a happy ending, it’s an opera for everyone.